Friday, 4 December 2015

decorate: diy pinecone wreath

Well, that was a rubbish start to December; we were all ill with the flu-ey virus that's going round last week, which meant I got absolutely nothing done, apart from lying on the sofa, watching Netflix and whining. But, we're all better now (*touches every piece of wood in sight*), so it's back to business as usual, phew!

Today I'm going to show you my take on the humble pinecone wreath. I spent ages trying to bind pinecones together with wire, and subsequently getting in a rage when they all fell apart - which is what led to the quickest wreath idea ever. (You'll soon realise that I am all about the shortcuts at Christmas....)

You will need:

Pinecones - mine were those really small ones, because my wreath was going to be small, but any size will do.

Foliage - this is from the path side of someone's overgrown bush - I don't know what it is, but I use it every year. The sticks are quite bendy, and the leaves don't fall off if you so much as look at them, so double-win!

Jewellery wire - mine was 0.5mm. Bendy, but firm.

A glue gun and glue sticks (mine was £5 from Hobbycraft and has lasted years. Definitely worth it if you do any sort of crafting, ever)

1. Gather your pinecones and foliage - you can pop dried fruits and whatnot on there, but then it turns into more of a general wreath, and I wanted to keep it pinecone-centric. (I made this by candlelight, by the way, because the bulb in the conservatory was broken and I was too lazy to get up and move a lamp. Highly impractical, but so pretty!)

2. Take your first stick, and bend it into a circle, weaving the two ends together. Repeat with another couple of sticks (depending on how chunky you want your wreath to be), and then fasten everything together with a strip of jewellery wire. Make sure you pull it tight, or the whole lot will ping open.

3. Before you get invlved with any gluing, plan where you want your pinecones to go. I didn't have enough to cover my entire wreath, but I really like it when they're smothered. I chose to put a little bunch on one side, and then a little bunch on the other side, with a wooden star from Wild Damson at the top to hide the jewellery wire.

4. Using the glue gun, attach the pine cones to your wreath base - less is more when it comes to glue guns; you don't want to end up with big lumps of dried glue all over your finished project.